What We Know and Do Not Know About the Epistle to the Hebrews

From A Brief Word of Exhortation, Volume 1:

The Nature of the Book

This book has been known as the Epistle to the He­brews since the latter half of the second century. The word “epistle” means “letter,” but this Epistle is un­like the other New Tes­ta­ment letters. It ends with per­sonal notes like a letter normally does, but it does not begin like a letter does. A New Testament letter nor­mally starts with the name of the writer followed by the name or names of the person or persons being addressed. This “letter” has neither.

The book refers to itself in 13:22 as a word of ex­hor­­tation. Paul was asked to give a word of ex­hor­ta­tion in Acts 13:15 and he proceeded to give a sermon. So, this book is more like a sermon. An exhortation is a com­­munication (such as a speech or a letter) which strongly urges someone to do something. The Greek word for “exhortation” also means “en­cour­agement.” The pur­pose of the book, therefore, is to encour­age and strongly urge its readers to continue in the faith un­til the end. This purpose is per­­haps best stated in 6:11-12.

What We Do Not Know about the Book

The Author

The personal notes at the end of the book tell us that who­ever first received this book was very fa­mil­iar with this author. However, the knowledge of who wrote this book was quickly lost. Origen, a Christian teach­er and writer who lived in Alex­an­dria, Egypt, and in Caesarea during the first half of the third century AD, did not know who the author was and said that only “God knows the truth of the mat­ter.”

This has not stopped people from speculating on who might be the author of this book. Barnabas, Apol­los, Luke, and even Priscilla and Aquila have all been suggested as the author(s) of the book. The most wide­spread and persistent sug­gestion is that Paul wrote this book. However, this sug­ges­tion can be traced back to only the latter half of the second cen­tury and appears to have been started by the church in Alex­andria, the very place in which Ori­gen lived. This means, of course, that Origen was not con­vinced by the evi­dence presented by his own church.

But this is all speculation. If we go with what the Scrip­­tures tell us, we would have to say that we do not know who the author is. God, who has inspired the Scrip­­tures, has not seen fit to preserve the name of the author, which means that it is not important for us to know who wrote it in order to un­der­stand it.

It is necessary to know who wrote the Gospels be­­cause they are presented as the testimony of eye­wit­nesses who had seen and heard the Lord Jesus him­self. The authors were the witnesses themselves (Mat­thew and John) or they recorded the testimony of the witnesses (Mark and Luke). The validity and his­­tor­i­city of the Gospels would be suspect if they had been writ­ten by people who had heard the tes­ti­mony third or fourth hand.

Paul’s letters tell the churches what they should be­­lieve and do. The validity of what he had to say rested on his au­thor­­ity as an apostle. If the letters had come from someone with lesser authority, the churches could have rightly ignored them.

The writer of Hebrews also tells his readers what they should believe and do, but the validity of what he has to say does not rest on his own authority. Per­haps more so than any other New Testament book, this book quotes the Old Tes­ta­ment. The validity of what the writ­er has to say rests on the authority of the Scrip­­tures. Therefore, the arguments that are pre­sent­ed in this book would remain valid no matter who had written it.

The Audience

The writer encourages his readers to remain in the faith and not revert back to following the old cov­e­nant. It is evident, therefore, that he is writing to Jews who had converted to Chris­tianity. What we do not know is where these Jewish Chris­tians lived.

It is often assumed that the readers lived in Jeru­sa­­lem. How­ever, when the writer quotes from the Old Tes­­tament, he always quotes from the Greek trans­la­­tion (known as the Sep­tu­agint), which was used by the Jews who lived outside of the Holy Land. Hence, it is thought that the readers were Hel­len­is­tic Jews who had converted to Christianity.

But the Hellenistic Jews lived throughout the Ro­man Em­pire. Suggestions as to where the readers of this book lived include Alexandria, Caesarea, Sa­mar­ia, Colossae, Eph­e­sus, and even Rome.

Again, this is all speculation. The fact is the Scrip­tures have not told us where they lived, which means that it is not ne­cessary for us to know where they lived in order to un­der­stand the book. Perhaps God left this information out because, even though this book was originally sent to a par­tic­u­lar group of Jew­ish believers, its message applied to all be­lievers everywhere.

The Date

We cannot be certain as to when the book was written. Clement, who was a bishop in the church at Rome, wrote a letter to the Corinthian church in 95 AD and he quotes from the book, which means that the book had to have been written by then.

The Epistle makes it clear that the sacrificial system set up by the Law was still being practiced, which means that the book was written before 70 AD, when the Temple and the sacrificial sys­tem associated with it were de­stroyed. However, we cannot get more spe­cif­­ic than that for the book’s date.

What We Do Know about the Book

What we do know comes from the book itself.

The Audience

We do know that the readers had already en­dured intense persecution (10:32-34) and because of that, they were con­sid­ering abandoning Christianity in favor of returning to Ju­da­ism.

The Message

The writer of the book encourages his readers to keep the faith. He does this in two ways.

First, he shows that the new covenant is superior to the old covenant. His favorite word is “better.” It oc­curs 13 times in 12 verses. The writer’s main ar­gu­ment, which takes up the bulk of the book, is that the new covenant is better than the old cov­enant. He dives right into the argument at the be­gin­ning of the book, where he declares that Jesus is better than the an­gels (1:4). He makes this point because the Jews be­lieved that the Law was given to Moses through the mediation of angels. The writer refers to this in 2:1-4. Paul also re­fers to this in Gal. 3:19. The writ­er’s point is that the new covenant which was me­di­ated by Je­sus Christ is better than the old covenant which had been mediated by angels. Thus, he en­cour­­ages his read­ers to stay in the faith because it is better than going back to the old covenant, despite the per­se­cu­tion.

Second, he warns them that if they do go back, they are not just abandoning Christianity but Christ him­self and will be punished for doing so. The book to the He­brews has more warnings about aban­don­ing the faith than any other New Testament book. The writer does not say that it is possible for one to lose his salvation but he does say that it is possible for one to give it away.

Ironically, this is why the message in the Epistle to the Hebrews is still one that we need to hear today. We are not in danger of reverting to Judaism but we are al­ways in danger of abandoning Christianity. The per­se­cution of Christians is com­ing to our country, perhaps soon. We will be tempted to abandon the faith and deny Christ so that we can escape the per­se­cu­tion, but we can­not escape God’s punishment “if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven” (12:25). The Epistle to the Hebrews is a word of encour­age­ment. It is also a warning. Let us pay heed to both its encouragement and its warning.